Obama softens tone on Gates arrest

The White House today sought to soften the tone of President Obama’s criticism of the Cambridge, Mass. police’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home earlier this week. But Obama said in an interview with ABC News that he was surprised by the controversy over the statement “because I think it was a pretty straight forward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home."

Asked about the incident at his nationally televised news conference last night, Obama said he thought “any of us would be pretty angry” about such an incident and that “the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

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After several major police unions expressed outrage over the remarks this morning, White House spokesman Robert L. Gibbs told reporters that Obama had not meant to specifically criticize James M. Crowley, the white Cambridge police sergeant who arrested Gates, an African American. .

"Let me be clear,” Gibbs said. “ He was not calling the officer stupid, okay? He was denoting that . . . at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that."

In the ABC interview, Obama said it didn’t make sense to him that the situation at Gates’s home escalated to the point that he was arrested. "I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do," Obama said. "And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down.”

Referring to Crowley, Obama said: "From what I can tell the sergeant who was involved is an outstanding police officer, but...better if cooler heads had prevailed."

Crowley defended his actions Thursday, saying in an interview with Boston Globe that he would not apologize for arresting Gates and he is “not a racist.” Several police organizations expressed disappointment with Obama for weighing in on what they see as a local policing issue.

“Statements like that made without the facts don’t do much to assuage any mistrust between the community and the men and women that protect it,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

Pasco said that among the organization’s membership, which makes up the largest police union in the country, “We’ve had a widespread broad based emotional reaction to [the president’s comment].”

“It’s been negative by and large,” Pasco said of the reaction.

“We don’t want our members to judge the president just off this,” he added. “But we certainly are disappointed that he said it.

The National Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the presidential election, but even unions that supported the then-Sen. Obama in last fall’s election have misgivings with his recent comment.

“We’re a little disappointed,” said Rich Roberts, the public information office for International Union of Police Associations, which endorsed Obama.

Roberts wanted to make clear that the organization does not have a “quarrel with the president or administration at all,” but he said the president’s comment reflected to his union’s members that Obama “was looking at it from a certain perspective that was not a police perspective.”